AMI has become a regularly adopted solution for improving operational efficiencies and managing many common City government business challenges. These challenges include aging infrastructure, system operational management, integrity, customer service, and sustainability objectives.
The City’s 41,000 water customers are currently billed utilizing a third-party contractor to manually read each water meter on a monthly basis. AMI systems use technology to communicate remotely with and read the water meters. The AMI system components include an Endpoint, the technology installed on the water meter to allow for the remote reading. The Communication Network collects data from all the endpoints to deliver to a Head End System, comprised of database servers that manage the system and store the data. Lastly, the Head End System is integrated into the City’s ERP applications to access and utilize the data for billing.
The City has been progressing through a phased approach to implement AMI, including completion of the business case, developing the design and requirements, procurement, and vendor selection. The implementation and deployment phase began with the City Council’s approval of the contract with Aclara Technologies, LLC, on January 17, 2023. The contract with Aclara Technologies, Inc. for hardware, services, and installation of the AMI technology totaled $9,214,347.98. During the Council presentation of the contract, staff identified that the remaining CIP CWA2210 funding of $3,044,727 will be used to secure the customer portal and the meter registers for those meters that are not getting replaced.
Meter Registers
The AMI system will collect hourly water meter reads at each connection to the City’s water system. These reads will be captured and securely delivered to the City’s head end system, where it will be utilized to monitor and diagnose meter operation issues, prioritize, and manage maintenance issues, and bill customers for their water use. It will improve the billing process through reduced billing adjustments and more accurate metering. The data will also be used to improve customer support by providing the usage information back to the customer through a new customer portal.
The City of Sugar Land maintains an annual water meter change-out program to ensure accurate billing and to improve water accountability. The City determined that meter accuracy begins to degrade significantly once the meter is over ten years old; consequently, the replacement program was developed to replace each residential meter once every ten years. Because of this proactive meter replacement program, the City will not be replacing all meters through the AMI program. The City will replace those meters on the current 10 year schedule through the length of the project and retrofit the remaining meters to be AMI compatible.
A critical component for AMI is the Endpoint which reads the Meter Register and communicates that data to the Head End system. The Meter Register sits on top of the meter and is how water usage is read. The AMI program will need to retrofit those water meters which are not being replaced with appropriate registers that allow for communication from the meter to the Aclara AMI network. The City’s meters are predominately two manufacturers: Badger and Neptune. The number of meters that the meter manufacturer will retrofit is 14,640 Badger meters and 6,570 Neptune meters.
The meter registers are unique to the meter manufacturer (Badger and Neptune), and the City will be purchasing the retrofit registers through separate contracts.
The City will be contracting with Accurate Utility Supply, LLC (Accurate) to supply the Badger meter registers. Accurate will supply Badger water meter-compatible registers, which meet all required specifications for the AMI Vendor, Aclara.
Project Funding
The pricing, terms, and conditions are supported by the BuyBoard cooperative purchasing contract No. 626-20 with Accurate Utility Supply, LLC. Cooperative Agreements are with governmental purchasing organizations. These agreements leverage the purchasing potential of governmental entities. All contracts are competitively bid, and contracts are awarded in compliance with state procurement laws and regulations.
During the Council presentation of the Aclara contract on January 17, 2023, staff identified the available remaining funding in CIP CWA2210 is $3,044,727. The available funding will be used to secure the customer portal and the meter registers for those meters that are not getting replaced; the contracts are within the budget available.
The total cost for 14,640 Badger meter registers is $1,390,800 for consideration in this agenda item. The total cost for 6,570 Neptune meter registers will be proposed at a future City Council meeting. The available funding in CIP CWA2210 will cover the cost of retrofitting all of the necessary meters (Badger and Neptune) to become AMI-compatible.
Recommendation
The Engineering and Public Works Departments recommend City Council authorize a contract with Accurate Utility Supply, LLC through the BuyBoard cooperative purchasing contract No. 626-20 with Accurate Utility Supply, LLC for the 14,640 Badger water meter registers for the Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Improvements, CIP CWA2210, in the amount of $1,390,800.00.